Sunday, April 8, 2018

"California's Legal Weed Is So Heavily Taxed and Regulated That the Black Market Might Survive"

From Reason:

Anyone over age 21 in California can now walk into a store and pick
up some marijuana. After three months of legalized recreational cannabis
sales, how is the industry doing?

To learn more, we tracked one product—the Kiva chocolate bar—up the supply chain, from seed to sale.
What we found was surprising: Cannabis entrepreneurs are anxious
about the future of the legal market under California's highly regulated
and highly taxed system. Under these conditions, some industry insiders
expect the black market will continue to thrive.

"The situation in the market is pretty dire," says Kristi Knoblich
Palmer, COO and co-founder of KIVA, which recently had to lay off
employees for the first time in its history. "That has everything to do
with the cost of cannabis to the end consumer."...MORE